Eli Roth blames pirates for the failure of his crappy movie
With his “Hostel Part II” having done poorly since its June 8 release, writer-director Eli Roth is pulling a Homer Simpson: “This is everybody’s fault but mine!”
And the primary reason for the film’s failure? Not its general lack of quality, or the fact that it’s an unimaginative rehash of the movie it’s a sequel to, or the fact that it wasn’t screened for critics (which drastically reduced the amount of opening-day publicity). No, Roth has determined that piracy is the reason “Hostel Part II” is flopping.
He writes on his MySpace page:
I want to thank all of you for your kind e-mails and incredible support for the film. However, piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with uninished music, no sound effects, and no VFX [visual effects]) leaked out on line before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally. Piracy will be the death of the film industry, as it killed the music industry, and while it makes a smaller dent in huge movies like Spider Man 3, it really hurts films like mine, which have far less of an advertising and production budget. Not only that, critics have actually been REVIEWING the film based off the pirated copy, which is inexcusable. Some of these critics I have actually known for a few years, and while I wouldn’t dignify them by mentioning them by name, I know who they are, as do the studios, and other filmmakers, and they will no longer have any access to any of my films.
What about critics who reviewed the film the normal way, by seeing it in a theater? Can we get in on that “no more access to your films” action, too?
“Hostel Part II” is indeed available for download on the Internet — and so is every other movie currently in theaters. I’ll grant you that horror fans might fit the demographic most likely to download movies instead of paying for them in the theater, and that a movie like, say, “Georgia Rule” probably isn’t being pirated as much as “Hostel Part II.”
But still. How many people are downloading “Hostel Part II” who would have paid to see it otherwise? Most downloaders are people who are just curious about the movie and aren’t interested enough to pay $8 to see it. If it weren’t online, they wouldn’t see it at all. People who liked the first “Hostel” a lot will want to see it in the theater, where the experience is bigger and better. My guess is “Hostel Part II” has lost $2 million from piracy, tops, and $2 million either way doesn’t make much difference.
Roth brings up another subject, in passing, that’s worth exploring. “Piracy will be the death of the film industry, as it killed the music industry,” he says. Except that the music industry is not dead. What the music industry did when Napster appeared was, the music industry adapted. They saw what people wanted — digital delivery of their music, instead of having to buy physical CDs — and found a way to get them to pay for it.
In 2006, CD album sales were down 4.9 percent from the previous year. But digital album sales through outlets like iTunes more than doubled! The result: Overall music sales were 19 percent higher in 2006 than in 2005.
The record industry makes more money from albums than from singles, and most people download singles rather than entire albums, so the labels are still trying to adjust. But the important thing is, they’re trying.
The movie industry, meanwhile, makes pathetic attempts to limit piracy (pathetic because they usually target people who aren’t the source of piracy anyway), while making almost no effort to adapt to the new technology. Their “solutions” so far have included selling downloads of movies for ridiculously high prices, then appearing baffled when no one wants to pay for them.
Anyway, my point is, Eli Roth is a whiny baby. Love, Eric.
[UPDATE: The blog entry quoted, after being derided dozens of times around the Internet, is now mysteriously gone from Eli Roth's MySpace page! Deleted by pirates, no doubt.]
June 18th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Maybe he meant that people were so busy watching Pirates of the Caribbean that they didn’t have time to watch his movie. So Pirates really did kill his movie.
June 18th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Well, most likely, Hostel II “failed” because it’s a bad movie. But second in line for the blame would have to be any studio dumb enough to open Hostel Part II opposite such fare as Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Oceans (1)3, Fantastic Four 2, and Surf’s Up.
Besides, the movie made back it’s production budget, and then some, (according to BoxOfficeMojo), so what’s he b*tching about?
June 18th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Critics basing their reviews on pirated copies of “Hostel II”? Maybe a couple (2), but for everyone else? Come on.
June 18th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I bet his myspace excuse will be believed only by people who have the umm–intelligence to enjoy his movies anyway.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
If piracy is bad for the music industry, I want more piracy because there has been some excellent stuff put out in the last couple of years, and that includes great, homemade/low-budget music videos.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
I thought the same thing as B. Pirates killed his movie, as in people would rather see Pirates 3 than his crap (and you can see that’s true because it’s still pulling in more money than his movie).
Anyway, I don’t know how people can use piracy as an excuse for a failed film. Looks to me that there have been a ton of blockbusters in a row, all of which were available for download before they even came out. I’m sure some money is lost, but I don’t know why someone would want a crappy download of a movie rather than just wait for the DVD to come out (like I do). Downloads, even the best, tend to have flaws, and aren’t half as fun as a theater. So I agree with Eric, people who aren’t going to see the film in the theater anyway tend to pirates movies. Especially if there’s lots of cool/scary visuals. PC’s just don’t compare to a real theater.
June 18th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
No, no, Eli, you’ve got it all wrong… you’re supposed to blame George W. Bush like Mariah Carey did! Sheesh. These perverted liberal filmmakers can’t even whine right.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
ClobberGirl, truely sophisticated perverted liberal filmmakers actually blame global warming, and then that leads naturally to blaming Bush, because he caused global warming. (I know global warming started before Bush was born, but the gene potential for him helped it begin.)
June 18th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
When I fist saw that picture of Eli Roth, for one second I thought it was Lou Ferrigno.
June 18th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
It kinda looks like he’s giving the Zoolander “Blue Steel” glare in that photo. He’s thinking: “I’m really, really ridiculously good looking…”
June 18th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
“When I fist saw that picture of Eli Roth, for one second I thought it was Lou Ferrigno.”
I thought gay Ben Stiller.
June 18th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Looks like the bastard love-child of Sylar and Ben Stiller.
June 19th, 2007 at 4:38 am
Lauren, I’m pretty sure that’s ‘Magnum’, not ‘Blue Steel’
June 19th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Peptidefarmer, I’m with you. That’s hilarious.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:39 am
So a guy who looks almost exactly like Sylar makes a horrid movie filled with disgusting visuals and a plot that is identical to the original….. Yes, it was definitely piracy that killed this movie. I mean, there are exactly three people I know who have ever gone through the enormous hassle of downloading a movie on the Internet. His whiny rant would have been more accurate if he had blamed pygmy witch-doctors in South America for causing his movie to fail when they made a voodoo doll out of the first Hostel DVD.
June 19th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Eli Roth is obviously completely wrong about why his movie failed. That being said, I’m not a big horror movie guy- but I do like rated “R” movies. “R” rated movies haven’t done well at the box office and there are less and less of them. This year, Knocked up and 300 are the exceptions.
June 19th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
I’m with the Sylar/Ben Stiller crowd, too.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The guy is just a few hairs shy of being Mr. Unibrow. Respect!
Also: I’ve never seen an Eli Roth movie, and I never will.
June 19th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
This whole pirated thing reminds me of the “Whose Line Is It Anyway” skit with the theme of “give money to the stars”. Pirating wasn’t a big problem back then, but the theme is the same: We don’t have enough money! People need to give us more money! Feel sorry for movie folks who only make a couple of million a year.
As Weird Al said “Stop taking away money from artists just like me. How else can I afford another solid gold humvee. And diamond studded swimming pools, these things don’t grow on trees.” Sorry, it’s hard to feel sorry for folks who make more in a year than I will in my entire life.
June 19th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
You’re wrong about one thing, Eric. The music industry pulls the piracy excuse far more frequently than the movie industry. At least they’ve learned that DRM is pointless and actually costs them more money than piracy ever did. Hope the MPAA wisens up to that point.
June 19th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Note too, of course, that everyone who ever pirated a movie anywhere in the world would have paid full price to see it in a theater otherwise.
I especially enjoy this argument in the software industry. If a kid in China gets an illegal copy of SQL Server, Microsoft counts it as $5000 in piracy losses. Because if the kid couldn’t have pirated SQL Server, you see, he naturally would’ve just ponied up the $5K to buy it. _Clearly_ it’s a lost sale.
June 20th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Further to Rob D.’s comment — R-rated horror in particular has done very badly this year, and in fact HOSTEL PART II’s performance is right in line with movies like THE HITCHER, DEAD SILENCE, VACANCY & THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2.
This is too bad, as I’m a fan of serious horror — but the quality of these R-rated horror offerings has been pretty low, so the folks who are making these movies have only themselves to blame…
June 25th, 2007 at 2:28 am
It looks like the post you quoted above is no longer up at Eli’s MySpace page.
Or is it perhaps only viewable by his friends…?